Book Review: Sin Eater

 
By Megan Campisi

• Pub Date: 2020

• Genre: Historical Fiction, Dystopian Fantasy

• Where I bought this book: Bookmatters, Milford, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: The term "Sin Eater" caught my eye 

• Bookmark used: Hell hath no rage greater than a woman scorned

********

    Let's get this out of the way: A sin eater is a woman, "unseen and unheard," who hears confessions of the dying and then literally consumes their sins by way of eating symbolic foods. By doing so, she cleanses their souls and takes on their damnations.

     It's not a career one seeks out, nor one that holds a high position in society. Rather, the woman is shunned, neither looked at nor spoken to, and must live apart, to be summoned only when sought out by the dying's kinfolk.

    It's occurred in cultures across time and space, but mostly in Great Britain around the 16th and 17th centuries. That's convenient for this novel, because it can add some kings and queens and palace intrigue, and set in a place that looks like an alternative Tudor England.

    It's an original, imaginative tale, centering around 14-year-old May Owens, an orphan and petty criminal who we first meet while she's in a crowded, dank prison cell, mostly for being poor. She's singled out for retribution by the judge (for reasons that become clear later on), and eventually sentenced to be the town's sin eater.

    An iron collar is locked around her neck; her tongue is burned with her mark, and she is sent off to work. She receives no instructions, and must find her own way and her own home.

    Poor and uneducated, May in nonetheless a resourceful, brave, and cunning character. She finds the older sin eater in town, and starts working and learning from her. But when they hear the dying confession of a royal courtier, and see an unaccounted for food at the eating, they find themselves in the thick of a palace scandal.

    The older sin eater refuses to eat a deer heart, not having heard the sin it represents, and is taken away to the dungeon. May doesn't know what it represents, but having seen the repercussions of refusing to eat it, does so.  But she recognizes that someone is plotting something; she seems to be a pawn in their game, and her life is in danger. So she decides she must, somehow, determine the what the hell is going on amongst the gentry.

    The royals sound much like a certain Tudor king and his court. The deceased King Harold II bears a strong resemblance to Henry VIII, what with his six wives, a new religion, and the lack of a male heir. Instead, his eldest daughter Maris, (Mary?), a Eucharistian, takes the throne and orders everyone to return to the old faith. But then Bethany, who, (like Elizabeth), is the daughter of the second wife, Alys Bollings, (Anne Boleyn, later executed for treason) became the Virgin Queen and returned the people to the new faith.

    As May explains it:

Maris ... was Eucharistian. She made everyfolk go back to the old faith and burned you if you didn't. She was known as Bloody Maris, even though it should as been Ashes Maris, since folk were burned not bloodied. ... (W)hen she died, her sister, Bethany, became queen. And what faith was she? Why, new faith. So she made everyfolk go back again to the new faith. Back and forth, back and forth. But it was no jest. Purgers came house to house to beat you if you didn't go along with the new faith. ... And the fighting's still not done. But now it for which suitor will win our queen, become king, and get his heir on her.

    The best parts of the book show the character of May, her growth, her kindness to the downtrodden, and her desire to tweak authorities. The palace intrigue, not so much.

    May is compared to Eve -- the woman who brings all evil into the world, according to the Christian Bible -- and the book itself has been compared to works such as Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Alice in Wonderland, and the play The Crucible, by Arthur Miller. I'm not sure about the first two, and don't know enough about the third, but all contain bloody authoritarian leaders who force women to suffers the sins of others, so maybe there's something there.

Book Review: The Book of Doors

 By Gareth Brown

• Pub Date: 2024

• Genre: Fantasy, magical realism

• Where I bought this book: Enchanted Novelties, Harrison, Ohio. 

• Why I bought this book: The story's concept is intriguing 

• Bookmark used: Volumes Bookstore, Chicago    

 *****

    One of the many problems with incorporating the idea of time travel into your novel is that it is inherently inconsistent. You cannot get around the fact that travel into the past is impossible. You can ignore that and claim that your characters are unable to change their present, because if that is so, what's the point? And you can ignore the idea of a djinn particle -- which allows for items to exist in a time loop, never having been invented. 

    So, you just fudge it, and let things happen without explaining them. It may cause confusion, but hey, it's just a novel, right? Don't take it too seriously.

    But in The Book of Doors, Brown wants to be taken seriously. He wants to explore the ideas of existence, of love and hate, of goodness and evil. But he leaves several big, gaping holes in his story -- such as the existence of different versions of the same person living in the same time dimension, with nothing untoward happening.

     He suffers from the flaws of many debut novels -- wanting to cram too much into the story and the writing, and not knowing when to quit.

    It's not a flawless read, but it's okay for something to sit down with on a cold winter's night.

    Here's the concept: Cassie, an unexceptional young woman who loves books, has moved to New York City and taken a job in a bookstore. She lives with a roommate, Izzy, who is far more outgoing and gregarious. One fateful evening, Mr. Webber, an older man she has befriended, dies in the store and leaves her a mysterious book.

    It's the Book of Doors, and among its scribbled texts and sketched images is a note explaining that using it means "any door is every door." Mr. Webber's added note says she  should "enjoy the places it takes you to and the friends you find there."

    But of course there is more to the book, and Cassie gets caught up in a whirlwind that threatens not only her life, and Izzy's life, but the lives of the people she meets, and, indeed, the very existence of time and space itself.

    She'll discover, through the friends and foes she meets -- including the Librarian and the Bookseller -- the enormity of what she had gotten herself into. It's truly an overwhelming adventure, not only for Cassie, Izzy, and their band of others, but for the reader. It's also a but gruesome at times.

    The characters are a mélange of the nice, the creepy, and the tropes. One, known only as "the woman," is macabre beyond measure. Another, an evil sort who gets tossed into the Old West, returns decades later as a cliche, and I half-expected him to declare himself the rootinest, tootinest cowboy in the west.

    It'll carry you along, fer sure, but only if you squint hard and don't ask too many questions.

Book Review: Small Mercies

 By Dennis Lehane

• Pub Date: 2023

• Genre: Historical fiction

• Where I bought this book: Barnes & Noble, Florence, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: I read about the Boston busing crisis in Common Ground, by J. Anthony Lukas, so this one resonated with me

• Bookmark used: Hobart Book Village, in Hobart, N.Y., which I visited the summer of 2024   

 ********* 

    This novel, of course, takes as its theme the Boston busing crisis, in the summer of 1974, when a federal judge drew up a plan and ordered the Boston Public Schools to desegregate. 

    But it encompasses so much more: racism, the Boston Mafia, a family crisis, insular neighborhoods, drug addictions, poverty, and a hot, dry summer in a city already boiling over with racial turmoil.

    It's a rich character study of the Southie neighborhood, its denizens and its surroundings. It's moving, melancholy, sometimes funny, and a tale that reverberates today.

    It centers around Mary Patricia Fennessy, known to one and all as Mary Pat, a pillar of her South Boston community, a stout defender of her Southie heritage and all that entails. But as she gets older, having been abandoned by two husbands, seen one son fight in Vietnam and die from a drug addiction, and her only daughter in serious trouble, her rage ramps up. She begins asking questions.

    Is the Boston Mafia, led by Marty Butler and his men, a protector of Southie? Are the Black people over in Roxbury and Mattapan really just a bunch of lazy thugs? Is her Irish Catholic heritage, and its people, really something to lord over others? And most importantly: Did she raise her children right?   

    We get to know the leaders of the anti-busing brigade, some real and some fictional.  There's Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, whom they call Teddy, because he was one of them. But since he defended busing, they now call him a race traitor, and we see as they assault and spit on him during the demonstrations.

    And we learn about the ugliness of the neighborhood kids who celebrate racism, and the Black folks who survive it. (Well, not all of them survive. There the mysterious death of one Black kid who was in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time, and the impact it had on Black people, white people, and the cops who investigate it.)

    Lehane, born and reared in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, has written several novels exploring his hometown and its surroundings. His genres have included mysteries and crime, and topics have included violence, loyalty, and a gritty underworld. This one has them all.

Book Review: Haint Country: Dark Folktales from the Hills and Hollers

 By Matthew Sparks (editor), Olivia Sizemore (illustrator)

• Pub Date: 2024

• Genre: Folktales

• Where I bought this book: Joseph-Beth Bookstore, Lexington, during the Kentucky Book Fair 

• Why I bought this book: The authors talked me into it  

 ******

     Just so you know: A haint is sort of like a ghost, likely someone or something that appears where the distance between the supernatural world and our world is thin, meaning spirits sometimes cross over. A booger is cryptid, an animal or person that has grown out of proportion on the other side. Stained earth is a place where something evil happened, and the spirits are restless. High strangeness is just something weird that happened and cannot be easily explained. 

    Haint Country is the Appalachian dialect terms for where all these things occur.

    If you pick up this book -- and you should -- you must read the forward and introduction to these tales. It'll teach you a thing or two and make them a lot more believable to you all.

    I swear to god and hope to die if I'm lyin'.

    Moving on, you'll find this an eclectic collection of tales told mostly in the mountains of southeastern Kentucky, the heart of Appalachian Kentucky, mostly from Lee, Owsley, Clay, Leslie, Perry, and Harlan counties. They have been handed down from family to family, friend to friend, some outright invented, and some recalled to explain a curious sight or occurrence.

      The tales are written -- or told to others over time -- by various authors, some of who are credited with more than one. 

    They have been told after dark on overnight fishing trips, in a school yard to explain why no one goes down that creepy corridor, or to a spouse to excuse lateness or a lack of pants.*

    Some are to remember the victims of the mining disasters that occurred regularly in Kentucky history and still haunt entire communities. Others explain the strange feelings one gets when passing a forgotten cemetery or jailhouse. 

    But some are just old tales told around the campfire when the stars come out and the night gets dark and spooky. The drawbacks with these are they sound like the least likely explanation for a simple event, like why a house brunt down, but the tellers insist that every word is true and verified by anyone with a lick of sense. This is mostly a problem in the second part of the book, when the good ol' boys think of something they saw on television.**

    The tales in the first part of the book seem more like those told and retold as a potentially plausible, maybe if you squint real hard, explanation. Or something told after a bunch of people got together to recollect why the old barn burnt down, and try to outdo each other with wild explanations after too much moonshine.

    The longest story concerns the spooking of a house in Breathitt County, most likely by Mary Jane Fox, who apparently didn't like the changes made -- or the fact that her husband killed her when they lived in the previous house on the site. 

-----------------------------------------------------

* See Paw Hensley and the Naked Haint Woman of Squabble Creek, attributed to Hensley Sparks, "a walking, talking tall tale, born and raised in Clay County, Kentucky."

** See The Legend of The John Asher's UFO, (an episode of X-Files, no less) "dedicated to the memory of Patrick Smith, who was also a witness to the events" in the late 1990s or early 2000s.

Book Review: The Gloaming

   By Melanie Finn

• Pub Date: 2016

• Where I bought this book: Roebling Books, Covington, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: Gloaming is one of my favorite words 

 *****

    Let me tell you about how I first came across the word gloaming. I'm an old baseball fan, and one of the old baseball stories I read early in life is about "The Homer in the Gloamin'"

    Gloaming is the twilight of the day. In his recent book, Lark Ascending, Silas House has his character use the word. A second character expressed ignorance, asking what it meant. She told him. He asked why she didn't just say dusk. She responded, correctly, that "the word gloaming is so much lovelier." 

    Anyway, baseball. Back in the 1930s, most ballparks did not have lights. Wrigley Field was a case in point -- indeed it was the last modern park to put in lights, in 1988. So the park was dark at night. But late in the 1938 season, the Cubs and Pirates were in a pennant race, with the Pirates half a game ahead of the Cubs. So game 2 of their series would determine which team moved into first place. 

    The game was tied. As nighttime approached and the ninth inning started, the umps said that if neither team scored, they would rule it a tie. And since baseball did not allow for tie games, it would be played all over the next day as part of a doubleheader.

    Top of the ninth, the Pirates failed to scored. Bottom of the ninth, the first two Cubs went hitless. Gabby Hartnett, the Cubs player-manager, was up, and down to his last strike.

    He hit the next pitch into the bleachers, and as he ran the bases and fans swarmed the field to celebrate the victory and move into first place, a reporter for the Associated Press started writing his game story. He dubbed Hartnett's blast, "The Homer in the Gloamin'" 

    So, the legend lives on from the banks of the lake they call Michigan.

__________________________________

    Ok, now about the book, which is not about baseball, and has neither a pennant race nor a home run. 

    What it does have is some good stories and  decent writing. It starts slowly with a series of flashbacks and present time settings. 

    Bit I am somewhat uncomfortable with her settings in Africa, where her descriptions portray a continent of dirty, backwards, violent people. It's the story of a white savior.

    The protagonist and narrator, Pilgrim Jones, is a white woman who has traveled the world with her husband, a human rights lawyer. We learn this, and why, over time. We also learn that while traveling in Africa, she simply decides to abandon her companions and stay in a country village.

    The explanation comes through as she meets a series of characters, most of whom are more interesting than Pilgrim. They all have backgrounds of trauma or bad choices -- and some have both. The first half of the book tells the tales from Pilgrim's perspective, while the latter part reveals details of the rest of the cast.

    The second part is infinitely better. Some of the tales are about people people causing pain and living with it, or perhaps seeking and finding redemption. Others are those who choose to be called victims, but find ways to go on -- or not.

    It hard what to make of this book. Pilgrim's character almost feels like a cliche, a trope. The others are more real, if a mite exaggerated. 

Book Review: Thirteen Ways of Looking

  By Colum McCann

• Pub Date: 2015

• Where I bought this book: Roebling Books, Covington, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: I love me a good collection of Irish short stories. 

 *****

 

  I am sad that I was generally disappointed in this collection of a novella and three short stories. I have liked several of the author's previous works.

    OK. The stories themselves were decent. The last one, Treaty, about a aging Catholic nun who comes face-to-face with her living nightmare, was thoughtful and compelling. But that one suffered from a flaw the others were far more guilty of, and unexpected from such an accomplished writer: A general lack of focus, using too many words, too much excess description, too much meaningless detail and too many strained metaphors  

    But let's start with the good. Treaty involves Sister Beverly, a nun living in a care home in Long Island, concerned about her health and wondering if her religious life has been a waste. She's forgetful, ill at ease, and unable to feel comfortable in her old age. Then on the television, she sees a man who looks very much like an older version of person who raped her a long time ago. 

    The story deals with perception, pain, horror, and regret. She relives her pain, but does not want to dwell on it as the defining point of her life. Would God want her to reveal the monster -- if that is what he is -- or forgive his actions? Her thoughts and behaviors are deeply compelling, and McCann's tale paints a masterful image.

    Contrast that to the main story, about Peter J. Mendelssohn,  an aging white guy, an immigrant, a Jew, a lawyer, and a former judge in Brooklyn. He's retired, and now living -- and dying -- in a fancy apartment on the Upper East Side. He's had a good life, despite an upbringing in anti-Semitic Europe. But now his days are all about his pains, his diminished capacity, his beloved but now dead wife, and his terse relationship with his egotistical son. 

    But unlike Sister Beverly, his story is not about reflection and regret. It's about him, his thoughts, and his dying. And, quite frankly, his life and story are not all that interesting for the amount of effort it takes to read about it.

    The other two stories, Sh'khol, and What Time is it Now, Where are You? also fall flat.

Book Review: The Ghosts of Belfast

 By Stuart Neville

• Pub Date: 2009 in Great Britain; 2023 in the United States

• Where I bought this book: The Novel Neighbor, Webster Groves, Mo. 

• Why I bought this book: It is a rare find -- a contemporary novel about Northern Ireland

*******

 

  Gerry Fegan is a republican hero in Catholic West Belfast -- during The Troubles he was responsible for a dozen sectarian killings of cops, loyalist paramilitaries, British soldiers, and ordinary civilians. He quietly served 12 years in prison before being pardoned and released as part of the Good Friday Agreement.

    Now, a decade after that agreement was signed, he's seeing ghosts. 

    Literally.

    The spirits of the people he killed want him to kill again. He tries to drink them away, but they stick around. He tries to reason with them, but it does no good. He's beginning to gain a second reputation, as a drunk who talks to the wind.

    But the ghosts are clear in what they want -- the deaths of the men who ordered Fegan to kill, men who are now seen as players, politicians and peacemakers. But to the ghosts, they are cold, hard men who lived violently and killed without remorse. Their justification was Ireland's cause, and their petty power.

    So Fegan obeys them and does his duty, which he has always seen himself as doing. The hard men quickly figure out who's now killing them, and move to protect their new, respectable standings. 

    This was Neville's first book, and the native of County Armagh is now known as the "king of Belfast noir." But this is a violent, unsentimental book, full of bombings and shootings and beatings. It's sometimes hard to read, but it's well worth it.

    The Ghosts ... portray The Troubles as vicious time, and its volunteers and leaders mostly as criminal thugs who used "Ireland's Cause" as an excuse to torture and slaughter their enemies.

Book Review: Highway 61 Resurfaced

  By Bill Fitzhugh

• Pub Date: 2005

• Where I bought this book: Roebling Books & Coffee, Covington, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: I love old Dylan tunes

*****

    If you're going to call your novel "southern noir," it appears you should have the following themes or characters involved.

    * A kinda shady private investigator who performs the job as a sideline to his first love, which is in a dying profession that never was a lucrative life. 

    * A drugged out, wild-eyed killer who isn't very bright.

    * A rich, old, antebellum family that once ruled the roost in its small town, but since has fallen on hard times. If some of them are racist, all the better. 

    * A slightly pathetic, somewhat mangy, but still lovable pet. 

    * The plot must be convoluted and involve music -- particularly traditional, down-home music.

    * It must -- must. mind you -- have a racially-motivated injustice from long ago that is ripe to be avenged.

    * It should have guns. Lots of guns. And, if possible, a shootout.

    This sharp and sometimes comic mystery novel contains all of that, and more. Much, much more. 

    In short, the plot involves a 50-year-old murder, some lost tapes of a supposed blues recording from long ago, and a disc jockey-private investigator trying to make sense of it all. Rick Shannon, a radio DJ in the mode of Harry Chapin's W*O*L*D, has landed back in Vicksburg, Miss., at classic rock station WVBR-FM. To supplement his income, he opens Rockin' Vestigations to find missing personsand skulk around cheating spouses.

    That's how he gets involved in a case that includes several murders, lots of history and music, and the LeFleur family. The action takes him around the sweltering Delta of Mississippi, and Fitzhugh, Mississippi born-and-bred, describes its people and places well. 

    The writing is good and solid, moving the story along with ease. That story is complicated, but Shannon's steady, structured investigation, following one clue to the next one, pieces it together well.

    The result is a fun and easy read that could be used to train real investigators.

Book Review: The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

  By Shehan Karunatilake

• Pub Date: 2022

• Where I bought this book: Roebling Point Books, Newport, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: The title, and it won the 2022 Booker Prize, which is always a good sign

******

    

 

   Even the dead in Sri Lanka continue to fight its wars, but only the ghosts see the irony in having the same enemies as the living. 

    This is one ghost's story of his country, which he loves, hates, and everything in between. As part of the living, he thought he was trying to change the wrongs, but his involvement failed to make anything better. He's not ever sure what better would have been -- because he sees the factions, parties, and terrorists as equal opportunity killers -- in life and after. 

    Maali is in the afterlife as the story opens, but remembers little about how he died -- or was killed, which he also suspects. He has seven moons to find out, and he spends the time reviewing and justifying his life, and the country's violent ways. 

    It's hard to determine his many roles in the violence, which surrounds him in death as it did in life. Because he is the narrator of this tale -- in both his ghostly self and as the main actors in his flashbacks -- he has a bias to make himself look good and the various sects who are the warmakers look bad.

    He's a photographer and a gambler, a journalist and a "fixer," who brings together outside reporters and members of the various militias, the military, the police, and the government men. 

    He's a gay man in a homophobic country, dating the son of one of its top officials. So his voice is sometimes self-suppressed -- and sometimes loudly outspoken and self-conscious.

    He's also wryly cynical and morbidly funny. He refers to the dead wandering the streets as a combination of the various gods and goddesses from the Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, and Christian religions that are part of Sri Lanka. He calls others the Cannibal Uncle, the Atheist Ghoul, the Dead Child Soldier, and the suicides -- and wonders if they could collectively be known as "an overdose of suicides."

Outside in the waiting room, there is wailing. (A police officer) walks outside to console the weeping woman. He does so by pulling out his baton and asking a constable to remove her.

     The switching from Maali's past as a living being, to his current state as a ghostly presence, can sometimes be confusing. And the story also questions whether we are the same person, the same soul, as we move from life to death -- and perhaps, back to life again.

Book Review: Quantum Girl Theory

 

•  Author: Erin Kate Ryan
• Pub Date: 2022

• Where I bought this book: Joseph-Beth, Norwood, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: I liked the title, and the plot of a missing girl who finds other missing girls 

***

   This book tries really hard, but it turns out a muddled mess.

    Oh, it has its strong points. It's a great concept -- a women, who disappeared as a teen-ager, spends her life running and searching for missing girls. But it really doesn't know what it wants to do.

    Is it a tale ripped from the headlines of 1946? Is it a broadside against violence against women and the havoc and ruined lives it reaps? Is it a character study of how women rebel against that violence, and the harm that comes to them and society? Is it a tale of racism and questions about why some missing girls are searched for and others seem to disappear without anyone caring?

    Or is it a woman who has the gift of Sight, who can see and feel and experience the terror of being stalked and assaulted, and lives her life in fear of its  recurring?

    Yes, it's about all of them. Well, it tries to be. But over a short 257 pages, it roams and rambles, introduces new characters every chapter, mixes memory and reality, jumps around in time, and altogether just can't seem to keep a solid narrative for long.

    Indeed, it often reads like a collection of interconnected short stories. And as individual stories, they are quite good. The problem comes when you try to figure out what is happening and follow the overall story.

    It just doesn't seem worth it.

Book Review: Alternative Ulster Noir

 

•  Authors: Colin Bateman, Stuart Neville, Sharon Dempsey, Gerard Brennan, Kelly Creighton, James Murphy, and Simon Maltman

• Where I bought this book: bookshop.org (Check it out; it's like a local bookstore online.)

• Why I bought this book: It had a story by Colin Bateman, one of my favorite NI writers 

*******

    One of the difficulties of reading a short story collection by different writers is trying to get into their individual heads and attune yourself to their separate styles.

    This is particularly true when you're unfamiliar with most of the writers, and while the settings have a vague familiarity, it's not like they are outside your front door. But the idea of stories inspired by or based on songs is quite original, so you're willing to give it a shot.

    Which is a good choice.

__________________________________________________________________

Hot tip: Listen to the songs first -- they are all online. It'll get you in the mood.

 Hot tip #2: Listen again after you've read the stories. It'll give a new perspective.

__________________________________________________________________

    With that said, let me tell you: This tiny little volume (120 pages) full of short (10-15 pages each) stories is well worth your time. It's unique, contains lots of weird stuff, and is chock-a-block full of original writing and dark interpretations from a merry band of writers from Northern Ireland.

    The stories are set in Northern Ireland, and tell of crimes and other dastardly deeds, some in or around Belfast, and they may or may not have secular connotations. They are also based, some more and some less, on songs by Northern Ireland-based artists.

    For instance, James Murphy's contribution takes the title of the song How to Be Dead by the band Snow Patrol and turns into a chilling suggestion of the nature of a witness protection program. 

    My favorite story, Black Dog Sin, by Gerard Brennan, starts with a man in the throes of a grief-and-alcohol-fueled binge, and ends with a strange, dark and cynical twist. It closely follows the song by Joshua Burnside, but then takes a warped turn.

    And the penultimate story, by Simon Maltman, who also edited the collection, tells a darkly humorous tale about a serial killer who tags along on a tour -- of which Maltman is the illustrious guide -- of Northern Ireland's noir haunts in Belfast. Based on Trigger Inside, by the punk band Therapy?, it literally takes a line from the song to give insight into the killer's mind. 

Book Review: Big Girl Small Town

 

•  Author: Michelle Gallen

• Where I bought this book: Half Price Books, Florence, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: It was a novel about Northern Ireland that seemed intriguing 

****

    Majella O'Neill exists in an out-of-the-way border town in Northern Ireland. She works in a chip shop, and took up smoking so she had excuses to take breaks.

 

   Otherwise, she's a loner, an introvert, and an observer of people.

    She doesn't like her job -- it's a greasy dead end, but it's the best she can do on the Catholic side of Aghybogey. She doesn't really like people, her town, her customers, fashion, makeup -- oh, heck, she doesn't like a lot of things. So many, in fact, that she maintains a detailed, numerical list of such things.

    She does enjoy a few things: the TV show Dallas, which she watches on video every night. Her greasy free nightly meal from the chip shop. Sex. And drinking in the pub.

    The novel is mostly about Majella's observations of her town, its people, and her interactions with the customers. Gallen is exhaustive in reviewing her conversations, even when they are identical every night. She make this clear -- she has similar discussions with the same people every night, and not only does she reiterate them, she reminds you these are the same discussions she always has with the same people.

    Such is the flaw of an otherwise methodical novel that tries to give you the sense of  a small town in Northern Ireland after The Troubles. It does a middling job on the tedious daily life, but larger details -- such as Majella's relationship with her grandmother, Maggie, whose violent death is portrayed more as sort of a minor point -- are glossed over.

    Nonetheless, it's an interesting and surprisingly quick read.  

Book Review: Days Without End

 Days Without End, by Sebastian Barry

    At one point in reading this painful novel, I was thinking of putting it aside forever. But I ploughed through, and eventually, it was worth it. But beware this is a depressing, violent, and traumatic book. 

    The plot, such as it is, is secondary to the descriptions of the scenes and the settings. And while the writing is evocative, it can be incessant at times. And some of those vivid descriptions deal with long passages about slogging through rain, snow and mud, or with hatred, fear, and slaughter. 

    The voice telling us all this comes from the main character and protagonist, one Thomas McNulty. He is a remarkable person to tell this story of the wild west, the Civil War, and the attempted genocide of the Native population. He is an Irish immigrant whose family died in the Great Hunger, a soldier, and a gay man who is gender fluid. He enjoys dressing as a woman, for a job, in the theater, and in his personal life. His loving relationship with John Cole, another male character, is a constant throughout the book.

    Barry gives McNulty a voice in the style of an uneducated person of the mid-19th Century. He uses language, terms, and expresses ideas that likely were common for the time, although considered offensive, if not derogatory and unacceptable, today. Yet, the gay love and transgender issues are treated in a matter-of-fact manner. While the two men often hide their love from others, they are sometimes accepted as a couple. In a passage late in the book, McNulty describes how he is comfortable with being gender fluid.

I am easy as a woman, taut as a man. All my limbs is broke as a man, and fixed good as a woman. I lie down with the soul of a woman and wake with the same. I don't foresee no time where this ain't true no more. Maybe I was born a man and growing into a woman.

    The story follows Thomas, or Thomasina, from about the time he is 12 when he and his partner, often called Handsome John Cole, run away from their orphanage and set out to explore the country. They get jobs as female dancers in a mining town, which is otherwise without women. It's not a sexual thing, but about companionship, and it is an enjoyable experience for Thomasina.

    The pair then join the cavalry. This is where the book bogs down. Pages and entire chapters are dedicated to their travels and travails though the mountainous west, the intricacies and politics of army life, and the murder and dehumanization that occurs during the Indian Wars.

    Then we read similar tedious descriptions about the battles of the Civil War.

    Eventually, John Cole, Thomas, sometimes as Thomasina, and a Native child they have adopted settle in Tennessee with an old Army buddy and a few others. But even that life does not go smoothly, and there are more long-winded tales of unpleasantness.

    But for the most part, it is a satisfying ending worth getting to.

Book Review: Every Heart a Doorway

Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire

 

   If you are seeking a world to fit into, look for a door. It likely won't be an ordinary door, or you may not recognize it as one. But go to it, and twist what passes for a knob. If it turns, step inside.   

 

   This is your place. It's real, and it should make you happy. 

    Such is a message from Doorway, a strange tale from strange writer. 

    But its message is also acceptance, a plea and a command to welcome  others as they are. Don't judge. What you may think of as others' demons, their quirks, or their differences, may merely be their means of getting by in this world. 

    Doorway is a small, short book -- the first in a series of many, which was first published in 2016. I just discovered it last month.

    It's set in an unusual school in the wilderness somewhere. There, children who have found but returned from the doorways to their worlds -- whether it's a tiny fairy door set into their bedroom wall, or a retangular hole slashed into the air -- are sent to cope and struggle through their desires and the reactions to them. Most want to return, but they cannot find their doors again.

    So they try to make the world they are in their world, and seek to adjust to their differing realities. 

    These children, Nancy, the narrator; Jack and Jill, twin sisters who need each other; Christopher, who came from a world of skeletons; and Kade, a transgendered boy whose parents think should return only as the little girl they wanted; and several others, all go to Eleanor West's school. Miss West, of an undeterminate age, also wants to return to her doorway, and her world. But she cannot find her door -- or perhaps doors are only for children -- so she has created a world of her own, as well as for others.

... her family had owned the countryside for miles around, and now that she was the last, every inch of it belonged to her. She had simply refused to sell or allow developments on any of the lots surrounding her school. ... Some of her greatest detractors said she acted like a woman with something to hide, and they were right, in their way; she was a woman with something to protect.

    So, on this land, with these children, there is an adventure, and a murder mystery, along with sadness and despair. But at times it's light-hearted, warm and fuzzy, and it will leave you with a good feeling. You may not like or enjoy each character's emotions and reactions, but you will come to understand and accept them.

    That's a credit to McGuire's imagination, her kindess, and above all, her outstanding writing.

Book Review: Flight or Fright

Flight or Fright, edited by Stephen King and Bev Vincent

    In 1963, the Twilight Zone aired an episode, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," in which an airplane passenger, played by William Shatner, saw a gremlin tearing off part of the wing. Some 20 years later,  Twilight Zone: The Movie remade the episode, this time starring John Lithgow as the passenger.

    Flash forward to TV 16 years later, when Lithgow was starring in "Third Rock From the Sun," a show about an alien visiting earth. In one episode, his boss, The Big Giant Head, played by Shatner, came to visit, thus rendering one of the best inside jokes ever on the networks.

    The Big Giant Head was asked how his trip went. His response: "Horrifying at first. I looked out the window and I saw something on the side of the plane." To which Lithgow's character responded in horror, "The same thing happened to me!"

    You can read that original story, first published in 1961 by Richard Matheson, in this uneven anthology of airplane horror stories. It ranges from a brief 19th Century story by Ambrose Bierce, to a tale of envisioned "Air Jungles" above 30,000 feet written in 1913 by Sir Arther Conan Doyle (yes, the Sherlock Holmes writer) to a 2018 tale of being on an airplane when the world ends, by Joe Hill.

    I know many people dislike short stories, but I think they hold a place of honor. A good one is hard to write -- with a few words and fewer character, a writer must tell a tale with a grab-you-by-the-neck beginning, a now-sit-there-and-listen middle, and a see-I-told-you ending. This book has some of those, but a fair amount of WTF stories that leave you empty, and a couple of tales that never get off the ground.

    There are some out-and-out horror tales, some that are more wild imaginings, and a couple of hang-on-for-dear-life adventures. One of the best is a simple detective story, with an opening that pulls you in, a middle that keeps you wondering, and an ending that is satisfying and believable. It doesn't lead you around in circles, but tell the story and gets to the point like a good short story should.

    As an added bonus, you get to read a new tale by Stephen King, a good one that reaches into the supernatural heights, but makes you wonder just how much of what he writes is true.

Book Review: The Hate U Give

 The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas

    When I started reading this book, I began to lament how depressing it was.

    In the first 25 pages, the novel's focus is revealed -- a young, unarmed black man is gunned down by a white cop during a questionable traffic stop. Given today's real-life versions of that very narrative, I feared it would continue along that heartbreaking path.

 

    It did. 

    But its overall tale was offset with accounts of ordinary Black life. The narrator and protaganist here is a teen-age Black girl, whose concerns include her schooling, her high school friends, boys, her family, her parents and her social life. She frets about how she and those around her have changed since middle school. She reacts with dismay, but is secretly proud, when her parents openly show affection.

    She acknowledges living in two worlds and practicing code-switching -- living a proud Black life with her family and friends in the 'hood, but playing down her Blackness when she is with her white friends at school. The two lives really interact. Her parents are unaware she has a white boyfriend at school.

    Similar to the protagonist in On The Come Up, Thomas's second novel, Starr Carter is a bright, observant, talented black girl trying to make her way through life. But unlike Bri, who rails against the inequities through her rap music, Starr plays along to make her way through both of her worlds.

    Still, Starr suffers through the discrimination, the poverty, the bullying of police, and the humiliation of being treated as less of a person at school and on the streets. She deals with the trapped violence in her neighborhood, and grapples against speaking out and risking more trouble, or staying quiet and accepting the 

    She struggles to find the common ground, working to stand up and speak out when she must, yet protecting herself and her family when she can.

    Thomas portrays her vividly, letting us in on her secrets and her fears. Thomas is a wonderful writer, bringing us into a world we don't know, taking us around, introducing us to the people and places. She shows us and lets us see a fuller picture of her world, and I for one am grateful.

Book Review: My Sister, the Serial Killer

My Sister, the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite

The thing you have to know about this book is that is it a well-written tale with intriguingly described and mostly likeable chracters. Except for adding a few local quirks, the fact that it is set in Nigeria is mostly irrelevant.

But all of this is spoiled by an ending that is confusing and unsatisfying. I'll avoid getting into why I think that to avoid spoilers. Suffice to say that I turned the page and found out I had just read the final chapter and was moving on to the acknowledgements page. I thought I has missed something.

Before that, though, it was a quirky, fun book. Yes, the title is accurate. The opening chapter gets started right away on why that is. The narrator, Korede, make no bones about her sister's proclivities, or her own participation in covering up those crimes.

If it were non-fiction, it would be disturbing. But as fiction it works in a bizarre, if facetious manner. Korede probes her motives in excusing her sister's actions. She has mixed feelings, sometimes justifying, oftentimes condemning, her sister's murders, but seems unwilling to actually stop them. Why? Her sister has the privilege of being pretty.

The resemblance is there -- we share the same mouth, the same eyes -- but Ayoola looks like a Bratz doll, and I resemble a voodoo figurine.

Ayoola seems blithely unaware of the consequences of her actions. She neither plans her murders, nor thinks about them afterward. She fully expects Korede to solve any fall out. Korede feels compelled, even obligated, to protect her younger sister. She enjoys literally cleaning up Ayoola's messes and organizing the fixes.

So it's kind of the saga of two sisters: One responsible; one not, both accepting of their lot in life. Or it's about being the breaker or the fixer. Or maybe it's just a story about various ways to stab men and clean up afterwards, told in two-part harmony.

Whatever, it's an enjoyable read. Just don't expect any answers.